When you first decide you want to be dating, of course there are the usual things that people spend money on. You might want some new clothes, and you might spend a little more on grooming. You might join a gym or sign up for new activities where you could meet people. Then you spend money to go out on dates-- maybe you pay, maybe the other person pays, maybe you go dutch-- one way or another, it costs some money.Then when things start to get interesting, there might be even more ways it can get expensive! Maybe you're a bit nervous and you want an extra drink to calm yourself down. Or maybe you find yourself going for another drink or a coffee just to extend the length of the date. And the dates start to become more frequent.Then maybe after a nice dinner out, you splurge to take a taxi home because it seems faster than the subway and it's a more romantic place to "accidentally" lean against each other or even hold hands. And then, if all goes really well, your dry-cleaning bills might suddenly skyrocket because you're madly and passionately ripping clothes off and throwing them all over the floor!

Perhaps some money needs to be spent on taking cabs or car services home in the wee hours of the morning. And perhaps some money goes towards little gifts, and sending flowers, "just because." Perhaps you get into long, rambling conversations and find yourself paying extra because you've gone over your allotted cell phone minutes. Maybe you start skipping out on going to your expensive gym and activities you wanted to spend time on before. And this mental state of mooning about, happily love-struck: perhaps it has made you a bit absent-minded about things like paying your bills on time, or using food in the fridge before it goes bad. Or worse, what if you become totally unproductive at work and get fired! (Please be assured I'm just thinking hypothetically about some of these things!)

Sigh. It's a good thing over-spending isn't always this fun. But does the start of a new relationship only bring more spending and wasting of money? Might it not SAVE you some money too?

For instance, you might start cooking dinner at home together because it seems cozier than going out. If you start spending the night at someone else's place occasionally, you use less electricity and heat in your own home. But on the flip side, you might get to the point where you're there frequently enough that you have to buy a spare set of toiletries and hair products to keep there, so that's an extra cost. And if the other person is also coming over to your place a lot, you might begin to feel bad about things like having only one night table instead of two: yet another thing that brings us back to spending money... as does the concept of buying plane or train tickets or renting a car when it's time to meet the family. But beyond that, as discussed in this article from last weekend's NY Times real estate section, there might come a point when you start to consider saving even more money by moving in together!

I myself am definitely not moving in with anyone anytime soon, if ever... but I am feeling rather wonderfully light-hearted and romantic these days... and yeah, I might just be spending a teensy bit more money because of it! But there's one thing about all this that didn't cost me a cent: despite my previous posts about the costs of online dating, guess where I found my new squeeze? The wonderfully, amazingly FREE Craigslist.

My romance quotient is about 0% these days, but I'm not bitter (ha). Really - I'm glad to hear someone is happy and in love. I think I'm on a dating hiatus until I get to NY this summer, and that's okay. I've got a lot on my plate with getting into grad school and moving, all very exciting stuff.

I find that I always spend more in the early throes of a relationship - clothes, going out, travel, both local and otherwise - but it never bothers me. Budding romance is so rare that it always seems worth it to overspend.

Even after the relationship becomes a "relationship," I still find the costs are higher because there are more outings (dinners, parties, events) than I normally do when I'm single, and I buy gifts for that person, cook more elaborate meals more often, buy better wine, etc. When I'm single my grocery bills are sometimes only in the double digits. I settle for the $7 Chardonnay versus the $15, for example.

I haven't lived with anyone in years and the next time I live with someone I'll be married, so I probably won't experience the money saving aspects of that any time soon. One financial upside to being single is that you don't have to spend when you don't want to - no worry about having to spend more on something (a trip, a piece of furniture) than you would because the other person really wants it. Single is simple.

Such a cute and creative post! I'm in a long-distance relationship myself, and sometimes it's hard to fork over money for those plane tickets but it's always worth it. And the fact that I'll be spending Valentine's Day watching my Netflix and cuddling with my laptop? Hey, it's cool.

Like others have mentioned, I always spend far more than usual when in the early stages of dating, and it's usually on new clothes and makeup and hairstyling.

But, unlike others, I do find that being in a relationship is much cheaper than being single! When I was single I would often go out (2-3 times/week) to socialize with friends. For example, the cost of buying dinner, drinks at the bar and then paying for a cab home was more money than I spend now for a night out.

About Me

My name is Madame X, and I am a 40-something single woman living in New York's lower Hudson Valley. I write about how much money I make, what I spend it on, how much I save, how I budget, my home-buying experiences, my financial goals and ambitions, my thoughts on class and what it means to be rich or poor, and anything else that relates to money. (More about me here, here, and here.)If you take any of my advice, do so at your own risk as I am not really qualified to give it. If you have advice to share, please do, and many thanks!